Today electronic devices like smartphones offer various user interactions through graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Such interactions may be for instance entered through touch inputs from the user or a stylus. The interactions may be used to implement various functions of an application running on the electronic device. Such functions may be e.g. selections of entries presented to the user through a GUI, or a series of inputs to use a selected input as a parameter to execute an application. Uploading a picture to a social network application falls is such an example.
Among possible GUIs proposed to the user, scrollable or movable lists of entries, presented to the user through a list of entries movable in a first direction of the user interface, offer an interesting user experience for an easy selection.
An example of a known scrollable list is taught in document US2001299599, wherein a list of entries may be moved in a scrolling direction. A first entry from the list may be selected through capturing a user input on the scrollable list to move the list from a first to a second position, in the scrolling direction. A further entry like a sliding input from a user on a first entry of the list and in a direction distinct from the scrolling direction will lead to the selection of the first.
Such a selection method may be available within an application. Nevertheless it is a not available across applications if an application developer does not offer its implementation. Furthermore it only allows the feeding of the selected parameters to an application for further use. But that does not allow an easy selection of an entry mode for the same application. Reusing the social network application example, a user will still have to select the camera input and browse a scrollable list of pictures before selecting one for uploading to his wall, i.e. his social network page. Transposed to a check-in, he will have to select through a scrollable list of possible locations the one he wants to check into for posting a check-in on his wall. If he wants to post a location or a picture on a different application, even if offered through a scrollable list, he will have to resume to process for the other application.
Today there is still a need for an improved selection method within an application. There is a further need for such an improved method that works across applications.